Still makes it practically illegal to produce less than $15/hr value. Can't produce that much? no work for you.
This ensures that, even in the article's revised view, those who do suffer are those most needy.
This ensures that, even in the article's revised view, those who do suffer are those most needy.
Earned income was critical to getting my life back. Being able to earn it, even if it meant working below minimum wage, mattered to me.
This is a diffuse impact, rather than localised — if waiters are required to be paid more, some factory workers may lose their jobs.
I’d guess one problem with those assumptions is that you may be right about the impact diffusing. Most workers in Seattle are above the minimum wage, so the total increase in costs of a regional minimum wage increase to a factory that doesn’t employ many or any minimum wage employees is going to be marginal, if even detectable.
And if we want to take more things into account and be holistic, we also have to examine the increasing in spending power of the minimum wage workers too.
> If labor is costly, the country isn’t as competitive compared to others, so jobs are outsourced.
The US minimum wage has been declining in spending power, and is relatively low compared to many other developed countries.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_S...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_S...
In the long term, all of our outsourcing is temporary anyway. The economies of the places we’re outsourcing to, like China and India, experience more growth and prices increase the more we outsource. The discrepancy between costs there and costs here is shrinking, and eventually when labor costs catch up, the overseas transportation costs, extra management and quality control costs, turnaround times, time zone offsets and communication and language difficulties, will make outsourcing more expensive than local sourcing. It might take some time, but ultimately outsourcing won’t be much of an economic threat.
But, seriously, I don't see the issue with ensuring that low-value work isn't worth it for anyone to do, employer or employee.
If nothing about a person is worth at least $15/hour, well, that sounds like a serious failing of the society that created that person.
From what I've seen, the most needy are the people who's work is worth well more than what they're paid, and who aren't paid enough to begin with.
There are people who would gladly work for less than minimum.
This is what we (as an industry) do, we disrupt and automate things, so I don't understand why you're so concerned about it.
And as for work worth less than minimum, then yeah maybe it's not worth doing by a human anyway.
The rate of adoption is actually something that matters. If you automate too early you lose money as a business. Also, the minimum wage not only changes the rate of automation but also the things that are automated; namely work that was previously performed by low skilled workers.
> And as for work worth less than minimum, then yeah maybe it's not worth doing by a human anyway.
What a great insight. Tell the people without jobs that it's not worth for them to work at $14,99 and instead to rely on government handouts for the rest of their lives. For many people an entry level job at low pay was how they started their career.
There are plenty of cases where if you factor in your expenses to go to a job, you actually get less on your bank account than getting your welfare.
If your business can't offer a salary that compete with a fairly low standard of living such as relying on "handouts" as you put it, then there's something wrong and yes it should be really hard for you to hire anyone. Yes there are some industries which are notable for being prone to that and that's usually why they also receive their own kind of handouts too.
This law sort of enforce it in a way (and beyond obviously).
I'm not US citizen nor a resident there so I have no horse in this race. But I do believe it's mostly a good thing
One way to look at employment is that it's your responsibility, as the employer, to know how much a job is worth to you; it's their responsibility to perform that job.
If you're having people do something that's not worth what you're paying them? I would say that sounds like you're not running your business very well.
Example: I'd like to hire someone to sweep floors every day, but a self-emptying Roomba is $949. At just 2 hours a week, and buying a new one each year, the Roomba costs less than $10/hr. At $15/hr minimum wage, I could buy a new one every other week and still save money. I'd rather hire a person who needs work, giving them a leg up to a better paying job, but between the state threatening me if I pay what the work is worth, vs the cost of buying robots to do the job, someone doesn't get a job.